LAST INVASION OF BRITAIN

Evening Star, Issue 25005, 26 October 1943, Page 3

LAST INVASION OF BRITAIN

WOMEN SAVE SITUATION It is not generally realised that Britain was invaded as recently as 14G vears ago (writes Pauline Walshe, in ''Sydney Morning Herald). This happened at Fishguard Bay, in South Wales, where now is the modern port of the Great Western Railway. Baedeker thus laconically summarises the event:—

" At Carreg-Gwastad Point, two miles to the north-west of Good-

v wick, a French force of 1,400 men

laiuk'd in 1797, only to be captured by the local militia."

The invasion was a complete fiasco, but details of what actually happened make strange and interesting reading. Britain was then at war with the French, and there was great fear of hostile landings. An American in the French service named Tate undertook to invade Wales. His fleet of three men-of-war sailed up the Pembrokeshire coast to Fishguard Bay, and landed 1.400 men quite unopposed. Watchers on shore hasened to spread the news. The French soldiers were badly disciplined, pillaged, got drunk, and committed various excesses. Lord Cawdor, of Stackpole Court, gathered together

all the forces he could hastily muster to repel the invaders. With 40 officers and some men of the Pembrokeshire Hussars, he rode along the cliffs. The gorgeous uniforms and fine horses of the Hussars contrasted strangely with the troop of men who followed them. These were a band of about 300 Welshmen, many armed only with scythes and other farm implements. The French thought Lord Cawdor was an English general with his staff leading the vanguard of a large army. The illusion was heightened by the ingenious strategy of a few hundred Welsh women, who, wearing their long scarlet cloaks and tall blank hats, walked backwards and forwards among the hills, conveying the impression that a large red-coated army was there, ready to attack. Tate, thinking himself 'hopelessly outnumbered,'sent a message to Lord Cawdor asking for terms, and offering to surrender. . This he didy without striking a blow, on Goodwick Sands in Fishguard Bay. Great was his chagrin when he realised how easily he had been tricked. The Pembrokeshire Hussars, now an artillerv regiment, still commemorate this victorv. The word "Fishguard" is inscribed on their colours as a battle honour.

Relics of the invasion are preserved at Stacknole Court, and it is said that several Pembrokeshire families cherish the actual red cloaks and black hats worn bv their resourceful ancestresses when thev so snocessfully deluded the last invaders of Britain.